There were no wild scenes of celebration in the Wairarapa-Bush dressing room after their NPC third division semi-final win over Mid-Canterbury at Masterton on Saturday.
Coach Peter Russell said while his team was delighted to make it through to the competition decider against Poverty Bay at Gisborne next Saturday they were
aware they could have done better.
"The general feeling was we had played pretty well as we wanted to in the first half but that the second half wasn't too flash," he said. "We should have made better use of the ball we got then??.our option taking wasn't as good as it should have been."
Russell said the conservative approach of the two teams was due more to tight defence than any deliberate reluctance to use their outside backs.
"Both teams tackled strongly in midfield and there wasn't a lot of time and space to move the ball on," he said.
The preliminary round clash between Poverty Bay and Wairarapa-Bush was also played in Gisborne with Poverty Bay romping home 30-5.
On that basis Poverty Bay will start hot favourites in the grand final but Russell is convinced a very different Wairarapa-Bush team will take the field on this occasion; not in personnel but in attitude.
"We let ourselves down badly last time. It would have to be the worst game we have played all season,' he said. " But they (Poverty Bay) were still flattered by the scoreline. We created a lot of scoring chances but didn't take advantage of them."
Russell said the big test for Wairarapa-Bush would be to play to their full potential, something they haven't managed to do for 80 minutes in any of their NPC games this season.
